Fujitsu-Siemens Amilo Li 2727 Laptop
Recently I purchased a new laptop, after the last one had essentially been out of commission for over two years after the orange juice incident. After looking around some, I went with the Fujitsu-Siemens Amilo Li 2727. Overall, it’s a budget machine, but not exactly on the level of dumpster-diving. Basically, it’s exactly what I need for doing a little work, web browsing, and things like that. The specs are below:
15.4″ WXGA BrilliantView (1280 x 800)
Intel Pentium Dual Core T2390 (1.86GHz)
2GB (2 x 1GB) DDR2-667 (PC2-5300)
160GB SATA HD, 5400RPM
SuperMulti-format DVD burner
Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100
Windows Vista Home Basic
…and miscellanous other things like LAN, WLAN, 4x USB, etc.
So far, it’s worked well in limited use. My only disappointment has been burning through about 8 DVDs in order to get a working copy of the recovery disks. From the Fujitsu-Siemens forum, it seems like I’m not the only one who had to deal with it. DVD+R is recommended over DVD-R, although my first try with DVD+R failed as well. At least it worked on the second take.
I tweaked Vista by removing the Aero theme and several processes. It runs well, and start up and shut down times are very quick so far. I would not recommend less than 2GB of memory for a Vista system, as even after the tweaks it idles in the upper 600MB range, and when the browser is open it quickly reaches 900MB. This is after antivirus (AVG) and antispyware (SpyBot) have been installed.
Overall, it was nice value at under $600 (equivalent, as I’m staying overseas right now). I’m pleased with what the laptop has to offer. It’s normally very quiet, has not had any overheating issues, and has been stable in use. I would have no problems suggesting it to someone looking for a laptop to use for similar purposes, as long as the individual had a little technical knowledge for making his own backups, and the patience that may be necessary to get through that process!